Basura Blanco Racing - an evolving fleet

Getting pretty close!  Ordered another Canbus cord and the Haltech gps speed sensor.  I've made contact with the local Haltech/dyno guy!  

I connected the hot wires and no smoke got out!   So I'm feeling pretty good about that!  And bolted the wheels on!

I've got a date with the tuner this Sunday to get this thing running!

In reply to Lof8 - Andy :

I'm excited to hear how it goes. I assume they will be setting up the base map and then doing the tuning in one session? Remote or on site?

In reply to captainawesome :

It's going to be 2 separate steps.  1) base tune/get it running.  This will allow me to drive it a bit and iron out any mechanical kinks.  He's going to come to my shop in person to do this.   2) we'll schedule a dyno session at his shop, which is only a few miles away from me, to optimize the tune. 

Installed the GPS speed sensor.  Ran the fuel pump for a bit - fuel system seems solid with no leaks. Set the fuel pressure on the manual regulator to 50 psi.  Waiting on a canbus connector to connect to the wiring harness.  That's the last piece and it delivers tomorrow.  I think everything's ready. 🤞

A couple buddies and I are planning for some trail running and a campout in the Ocala National Forest next weekend, so the ol XJ got a quick pressure wash bath to remove the webs that had accumulated and an oil check.  She's lookin ready to play!

I got some pricing from the Haltech dude. $350 for setup and base tune. $750 for the dyno tune.  That's about what I was expecting, but I was hoping for less.  Oh well, sometimes I prefer to pay the experts rather than invest the time to become a faux expert myself.  

In reply to Lof8 - Andy :

Money well spent I'd say. It can make a huge difference in drivability when tuned correctly. Also if there aren't any portions of the tune locked when finished you can always make tweaks as you see fit. I also find it funny our XJs are the same color.

Heck yeah! Congrats and ready to hear first drive report.

Big day yesterday!  After a couple of hours to setup the Haltech and wiring inputs, she fired right up!   The engine sounds healthy, no smoke, and all of the systems seem good.  I drove it around the block a bit this morning before work.  It's a riot!!

I have a few things to iron out.  The cheapie eBay radiator fans aren't pulling enough air. The temp continues to climb when the car is idling a long time.  I plan to replace them with a pair of good Spal fans.   The cheapie tps that came with my throttle body is giving inconsistent readings, so I'll look to find an oem one.  It's causing the rpm's to hang quite a bit off throttle.   The Tuner, Harry, says he's got somewhat limited ability to control idle rpm since my setup has no idle air control valve.  I'm going to investigate the iac setup available from Haltech. 

the clutch is disengaging way at the floor of the throw.  I'm going to bleed the system again and possibly some adjustments at the pedal linkage.  
 

overall, I'm super pumped!   This is a LOT more power than the old lump and way smoother.  The transmission feels wonderful!  I haven't even gotten it "into the Vtec" yet  🤘🤘

You might have some air trapped in the cooling system. These can be notoriously hard to burp and depending on how the lines are connected with a deleted heater system can make it worse.

Super cool!  Congrats on the first start and first drive!

A few old pics my sister dug up and sent to me today.  A buddy of mine in high school's Dad had a Stealth twin turbo.   I thought it was the coolest car ever.  I saved up some money and bought a base model stealth because I couldn't afford the turbo version.  I put a 3kgt front end on it and a few other cosmetic mods.  It was a dog but I loved it. lol.  It did eventually end up all one color.   I remember those wheels were "Fittipaldi Tubolares" 18x9.  I got them for like $65/wheel closeout on Tirerack.   I guess I liked to go sans shoes and shirt back then.  Also pictured is my dads C4 track car.  Last pic is me on my dad's bike.  

In reply to Lof8 - Andy :

No shirt and no shoes was proper attire growing up in FL. Regardless of the activity.

A few pics from the weekend trail ride.  It was a nice relaxing little 1 day/1 night outing.  All of the vehicles were trouble free and we explored some new-to-us areas of the Ocala Forest.   We pulled a 2wd out of the sugar sand.

The XJ earned some new trail badges squeezing through some of the narrow, less traveled trails.

After the recent hurricanes, FEMA was handing out boxes of MRE's, boxed water, and gasoline.   We ate some of the MRE's on our trip.  They weren't real flavorful but not terrible either.  

This is not a sunset, but actually the moon coming up.  It was wildly bright.

Campsite, next to a shallow lake.  Nice and breezy.  No mosquitos!

Sunday morning, we hit a Waffle House to start the trek home.  A lady had broken off her valve stem at the adjacent Wawa.  We swapped on the spare for her and she bought the three of us breakfast in exchange.  Even though we had told her we didn't want any payment.  She was a sweet old lady :) 

Looks like a fun adventure! And that supermoon on Friday night was crazy!

Well, I'm kind of stuck as to why I can't get the cooling system to cool better.  The fans are pulling a ton of air through the radiator.  I did pull the cap off the nipple on the top of the radiator and got a little bubble out.  But every try after that has been all coolant.  
 

with the fans running, I can tell the passenger side of the radiator is not as hot as the driver side.  Passenger side hose (that goes back to the water pump, which is sucking the water) is significantly cooler than driver side hose.   I wish the radiator inlet was at the top of the radiator.  Its location has me questioning if that is having an effect. 

Have you tried jacking the rear of the car up way above the front to help send trapped air to the rear? Also you may consider getting an inexpensive vacuum coolant setup.

Also what temps are you seeing at the radiator vs the head?

And another thing, if that's just a vacuum rubber cap used for the bleed port it will fail in a short amount of time. They sell silicone versions rated for coolant to swap it out with.

In reply to captainawesome :

I have not jacked up the rear yet but I got that suggestion in another group as well.  
 

I have not compared temps at head vs radiator yet. 
 

it's a silicone cap at the radiator. Another suggestion I received was to attach a hose there and elevate it to vent out air while running.  Apparently MR2's use a similar system.  

I wonder, unless you have one and I missed it, if you need an additional pump. 

Just going off of some observation of drift cars with rear mount radiators, it seems like a lot of them either run a secondary water pump, or ditch the factory pump altogether for an inline upgraded pump. Maybe not in every scenario, but I've definitely seen that done, and it seems like you pretty much have the same situation just flipped around. 

Especially when you're saying one radiator hose is significantly cooler than the other, makes me think it's a flow issue. 

I think if only one side of the rad is getting warm that the thermostat isn't opening. I had issues on my FRS with that when I first swapped because the kit deleted one of the lines to the thermostat housing. Not sure how yours is plumbed but sounds like a similar issue?

yeah, I'm also leaning toward a thermostat issue.  It may also be related to engine rpms.   My recent "testing" is just idling in the garage and observing the temp after the fans kick on - it continues to climb.    But when I did my run around the neightborhood, the temp was staying nice - I don't think I even got up to the temp where the fan kicks on.   Going to do more testing this evening while playing with rpms.

In reply to AWSX1686 (Forum Supporter) :

A local buddy has a turbo K24 in his 996 (engine rear, radiators front).  He says the stock water pump is working fine for him.   But there are some other subaru water cooled 914 guys using a secondary water pump.   Its something to consider.